Riding rockets and jets around the frozen wastes of Sweden

An attentive reader tipped us off to the guys at Mobacken Racing (translation), a group of Swedes dedicated to the art and craft of putting jet and rocket engines on go karts and snowmobiles.

One of the simpler builds is a pulse jet sled. Pulse jets are extremely simple devices – just a few stainless steel tubes welded together and started with a leaf blower. The simplicity of a pulse jet lends itself to running very hot and very loudly; the perfect engine for putting the fear of a Norse god into the hearts of racing opponents.

Pulse jets are a bit too simple for [Johansson], so he dedicates his time towards building a jet turbine engine. Right now it’s only on a test stand, but there’s still an awesome amount of thrust coming out of that thing, as shown in the video after the break.

In our humble opinion, the most interesting build is the 1000 Newton liquid fuel rocket engine. The liquid-cooled engine guzzles NOX and methanol, and bears a striking resemblance to liquid fuel engines we’ve seen before. Sadly, there are no videos of this engine being fired (only pics of it strapped to a go-kart), but sit back and watch a couple other hilariously overpowered engines disturbing a tranquil sylvan winter after the break.

Edit: [Linus Nilsson] wrote in to tell us while the guys at Mobacken Racing are good friends, [Linus], his brother, and third guy (his words) are responsible for the pulse jet sled. The pulse jet is actually ‘valved’ and not as simple as a few stainless steel tubes. The pulse jet isn’t started by a leaf blower, either, but a four kilowatt fan. [Linus]’ crew call themselves Svarthalet racing, and you can check out the Google translation here.

Just to clarify, they are two different teams, one is Mobacken racing that builds the jet engine and the other team is Svarthålet racing. They are equally entertaining to read and their madness is complete!
I really regret that I couldn’t visit Orsa Speed weekend where they ran the pulsjet twice. When they started it, car alarms went off a few kilometers away!

N0lkk: there’s no brakes. You turn off the engine and hope you are on a big enough lake.
Normally we use the “spark” (or “kick” translated into English) on the streets but then it’s man powered. You stand with one foot on one ski and you kick yourself forward with the other foot.

This is the same sort of pulsejet the Germans used on their V1 rockets, the buzzbomb. The vanes at the front of the engine act as a one way valve sort of, to suck in air, but disallow the blast out the front, forcing it all out the back.

Not quite as simple as the other, but still a simple engine.

This is so cool…. I wonder if there’s enough thrust from the turbine to use on that flying bat wing? Looks like a turbo charger from a truck or something.

Yes, the pulse jet is indeed a quite simple engine. Quite big though. It should be somewhere in the range of 60-80% of the original V1. Not easy to say. We will make some more accurate measurements of the thrust in a couple of weeks.

Johanssons turbine jet is a masterpiece! He has manufactured close to everything but the turbine wheels (Garret) himself. And yes, the thrust should not be of any problem at all if you’d like to kill yourself on a bat wing! =)

I never knew there was a group of people doing this officially. We I worked (retired now) and I went on business trips, I always used to try to walk the city as much as I can. Cities I visited that I considered fun and walkable: Boston, Seattle, New York, San Francisco. Cities I visited that were not walkable: Los Angeles (downtown), Dallas, Boulder.